Principles of Literary Criticism

Ivor Armstrong Richards was one of the founders of modern literary criticism. He enthused a generation of writers and readers and was an influential supporter of the young T.S. Eliot. Principles of Literary Criticism was the text that first established his reputation and pioneered the movement that became known as the 'New Criticism'. Highly controversial when first published, Principles of Literary Criticism remains a work which no one with a serious interest in literature can afford to ignore.

'To us Richards was infinitely more than a brilliantly new literary critic: he was our guide, our evangelist, who revealed to us, in a succession of astounding lightning flashes, the entire expanse of the Modern World.' - Christopher Isherwood'Principles of Literary Criticism is an important contribution to the rehabilitation of English criticism - perhaps because of its sustained nature, the most important contribution yet made. Mr Richards begins with an account of the present chaos of critical theories and follows with an analysis of the fallacy in modern aesthetics.' - Herbert Read, Criterion'Richards is simply the most infulential theorist of the century.' - George Watson, The Literary Critics, 'To us Richards was infinitely more than a brilliantly new literary critic: he was our guide, our evangelist, who revealed to us, in a succession of astounding lightning flashes, the entire expanse of the Modern World.' - Christopher Isherwood

I. A. Richards (1893–1979). One of the most influential literary critics of the twentieth century. He taught at the University of Cambridge from 1922 before moving to Harvard University, where, from 1944, he was Professor of English Literature.